


Resurrection

by ardellian



Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:27:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25059244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardellian/pseuds/ardellian
Summary: Sidestep returns from the dead and no one knows how to feel about it.
Relationships: Ortega/Sidestep (Fallen Hero)
Comments: 26
Kudos: 101





	1. Chapter 1

“Angie?” says Ortega on the other end of the line. Argent doesn’t bother replying - she’s eating and Ortega knows who he’s called. “Are you around this afternoon?”

She swallows. “Sure,” she replies, picking up another doughnut. “Why?”

“Good,” he replies, ignoring her question. “And the rest?”

Argent shrugs to herself. “They’re around. Chen’s writing reports, I think.” He’d looked sufficiently annoyed for that to be the case, at least. “Why?” 

“Good...” he says again, drawing the word out. “I was thinking of coming by, and-” A pause. Argent suppresses a sigh. He’s got a bad idea. _Again_. “I’ve met someone that might be able to give some input. Miles Becker.” 

Of course. _Input_ . The snarl comes immediately. “You fucker, I specifically asked you _not_ to talk about it!” 

“I know,” he says putting on the tone he uses when he’s trying to placate someone, like he thinks she doesn’t recognize it, like it’s going to work on _her_. 

“I don’t need any goddamn _‘input’_ \- I need to find the bastard! You just did precisely what I asked you _not to do!"_

“I know.”

“Jesus Christ, Ortega!” 

“I know, but...”

“But what?”

“Would you be willing to-”

“Oh for-! You’re not the one who got their head messed with!”

“Yes, I know.”

“And you can’t just drag some rando into this without even asking me!” 

“Yes... I _know_ , that’s why I’m calling you.”

“That’s-" Argent stops, holds her breath for a moment. Why is she even surprised? "So what, then?" she grits out. "Who is it? It’s someone you know?”

“Yes, of course. I can vouch for him. I wouldn’t suggest it otherwise.”

What was the name?

“Wait; Miles _Becker_ \- isn’t that...?"

“Yes, that Miles,” Ortega says, and Argent blinks. Even through the phone, there’s a weird tone to his words. “Who else would it be?”

“He died,” Argent says. If it’s one thing that she knows about Sidestep, it’s that he died. How long ago now? A while after the Nanosurge. And Ortega never got over it. “Like a decade ago.” 

“I know,” Ortega says. Is she imagining it, or does he sound just a little breathless?

“And now he’s just alive again? How?”

“That’s a long story, but yes, very much alive. And retired. I just thought...”

Argent sighs. “He was a telepath, right? You’ve said that his real powers were telepathy. You think he can tell who did this to me.” 

“Yes,” Ortega says happily, “that’s exactly why I suggested it.” 

Sidestep. Ortega’s old partner, whose death is his biggest regret and the reason he stepped down as Marshal, the long lost maybe-lover he never managed to forget... Alive? All this time?

“Yeah, okay,” she says. “Bring him here. I’ll tell the others.” 

“I’ll see you in a while then.”

Argent hangs up the call and stares at the doughnut in her hand. Sidestep. The vigilante who stole Ortega’s heart and took it with him to the grave. She takes a bite. She always wondered what he must have been like - Ortega's stories were wildly inconsistent and Steel wasn't any help. You've seen his face in some grainy photo, but all you can remember is that he was white and seemed completely unremarkable. 

She takes a bite out of the doughnut and heads off to find Steel. 

* * *

When Argent barges into his office with about as much tact as a tank, Wei still has to admit he’s still glad for the break. The reports and emails and spreadsheets are endless, and he hates the work. He never had Ortega’s way with people, and no one ever seems to want to actually listen what he tries to tell them... 

Argent stands in the doorway, chewing on a doughnut and frowning at him. She doesn’t seem inclined to explain herself, so Wei leans back with a sigh and frowns back.

“What, Angela?” he says. “I’m trying to work.”

She swallows the rest of the doughnut in one bite. “I just got a call,” she says. “From Ortega.” 

“And? Is he in trouble?” 

She shrugs. “He said he _found_ someone.” Wei’s frown deepens. Argent sounds hesitant - and that’s unusual. Something is going on. “Someone who might have input on the mall incident.” 

Please, Wei thinks as he leans forward with a sinking heart, please God - don't say Ortega got them in trouble again. He has no idea who he might have found; they’ve already decided their regular contacts aren’t a good idea, so what-

“Miles Becker,” Argent continues, speaking the name like she’s trying to taste it. 

First he thinks he misheard. His brain just conjures up _that_ name because he saw someone who was the spitting image of Sidestep the day of the incident. It’s only because Ortega mentioned it the other day, only because he’s been thinking about how damn useful the man used to be. It’s just that Sidestep’s been so much on his mind lately. That’s why he hears _that_ name come out of Argent's mouth. 

But he does the double take, going over the memory and no. She said Miles Becker. She said Ortega found _Miles Becker._

“You misheard,” Wei grunts. 

“I didn’t,” she smarts back, and folds her arms across her chest. 

For a few seconds they stare at each other. Argent doesn’t back down - but she _must_ have misheard. 

“You do know that was Sidestep’s name,” Wei manages to say with a steady voice.

“Yep,” Argent replies. “Telepath. That’s why Ortega thought it would be a good idea.” 

“Sidestep is dead,” Wei snaps, and he _is_ \- Wei _knows_ he’s dead, almost lost his life for the proof of that - he sees those pictures in his nightmares, still, a broken body on a steel table with - 

He shakes his head. 

“What you’re saying is impossible.”

“I’m only saying what Ortega was saying,” Argent retorts. 

“And you must have have misheard. Ortega wouldn’t say that.” 

“Well, they're coming here, so I suppose we’ll see soon enough.” 

“I suppose,” Wei replies. 

Argent frowns at him a little, and then shrugs. “You get to tell Daniel,” she says, and leaves the same way she came. Wei stares out the corridor after her. 

She must be mistaken. Ortega wouldn’t be, surely, and neither would he _pretend_ that he found _Sidestep,_ of all people. 

Goddamnit, now he has to tell Daniel that Argent thinks Ortega thinks he has found _Sidestep_ \- if this turns out to be a joke, then Ricardo is going to _get it._

* * *

Daniel’s playing with his phone when the Marshal knocks on his open door. He quickly locks the screen to hide the game.

“Come in!” he says and gives Steel a smile, but gets nothing but a terrible frown in return. More terrible than usual, actually. “Is something wrong?” 

It can’t be an emergency, then Steel wouldn’t have knocked... 

“Something’s come up,” the Marshal grumbles. “Ortega has asked for a meeting.” 

“Ortega? He’s supposed to have the day off.”

“He called Argent. Apparently.” Steel nods down the corridor and Daniel gets up to follow. “She says he found... someone.” 

“Found someone? Who’s been missing?” 

Steel’s frown grows a fraction deeper. “Someone that might help with the mall incident.” 

Daniel swallows, and suddenly feels very aware of his bruises. “Who is it?” he asks. “I thought we agreed not to bring in any of the regular psi-sensitives.”

Steel shoots him a strange look, and then he sighs. “Argent thinks Ortega found Miles Becker.” 

“Miles...” Daniel’s breath gets stuck. “ _Sidestep?_ ”

“Sidestep is dead,” Steel says - Daniel barely hears him. “She misunderstood.” 

“Sure,” he replies. “Yeah, sure, that makes more sense.” Steel doesn’t look relieved - the opposite. 

Of course, Sidestep has been dead for _years_.

But maybe he’s not. Maybe he lived, maybe Ortega found him, maybe he’s on his way _here..._

* * *

Wei hears Ortega coming down the hall, because the silence in the conference room is deafening. Daniel tried to talk to Argent, at first, but she straight up ignored him, and Wei doesn’t feel like small talk either. All he wants is Ortega to come in here with someone who’s not Miles Becker, and then he can relax again. 

But it’s too easy to imagine that Ortega’s laughter is the same as a decade ago, and that when he comes through that door, Sidestep will be trailing after him with a shrewd grin on his face, hair in his too sharp eyes and a wry comment ready to fire. It’s way too easy to imagine it, despite the years, despite what he knows now. That voice even sounds like him, a little bit. 

It’s so easy to wish for things that can’t be.

So when Ortega comes through the door and it’s not Sidestep, Wei feels like someone slapped him, because the man that follows him through is older than Sidestep was, his hair is in his face but it’s longer than Sidestep’s, even though he’s dressed in the same drab clothes and has the same tired eyes and complexion and pulls his shoulders up the same way and - 

Wei's stomach turns. 

“I’m sorry I had Angie call you all in so suddenly,” Ortega says with a bright smile. “Have a seat, Miles,” he gestures to a chair around the table, “and we’ll explain everything.”

And Miles Becker gives Ortega a hesitant gaze from underneath the hair. Ortega, who looks tense and nervous and excited, and whose eyes meet Wei's shortly, but quickly goes back to - to _Sidestep_.

It’s him - it can’t _not_ be him, he doesn’t look the same but it’s been seven years, of course he wouldn’t. He wears the same kind of hoodie he always did when not in the suit, a shirt underneath that goes up to his throat. Was that him, at the mall? That’s what he looked like, that man; long hair, sunglasses, hands shoved deep into his pockets. 

It’s Sidestep. It’s _impossible._

“Hello, Chen,” he says, and turns towards Wei with a half-smile, “it’s been awhile.” 

And he looks tired, he looks worn down and has even darker shadows under his eyes than in Wei’s memories, and his cheeks are hollow, and there’s a faded mark over the bridge of his nose and through the bangs Wei can see a few ugly scars that reach down from his scalp, things he wouldn’t have noted it he hadn’t looked for them because he knew they would be there. Because...

Resolutely he ignores that image. 

“So you are not dead,” he says, and focuses on the way Sidestep’s face turns into a frighteningly familiar frown before he sinks down in the chair. 

“It’s a long story,” Sidestep says, and looks away. “Ortega can fill you in later.” 

Good way to not get your story mixed up. Only tell it once.

I hope he hears _that_ , Wei thinks, and turns to Ortega, who has sat himself down next to Sidestep. “Ortega has a lot of things he needs to fill me in about.”

The man doesn’t even have it in him to look guilty. Wei spent years looking for this man, lost his shoulder and almost his life and Ortega just... finds him? 

These kinds of coincidences don’t happen. People don’t come back from the dead. 

Still, he leans back and lets it happen, because Ortega is looking at the man who used to be Sidestep with something that’s too much like hunger, and the more he talks, the more Wei can’t help but believe it too. 

You could copy a face, but you can’t copy an entire personality - can you? Could you copy the way someone smiles? The way someone smiles so differently at different people? How Sidestep - no, he’s not Sidestep anymore, he makes that clear, but Wei’s not going to think of him as _Miles_ \- how _Becker_ smiles at Daniel with all the false cheer of a sales clerk, but when he turns to Ortega it’s a fragile guarded thing and how Wei wishes he didn’t have that expression memorized, how he wishes this didn’t drag up feelings that he thought he was over a long time ago. 

He shuts it down tight and tries to focus on Argent. He never wanted Becker to read his mind, and especially not now. If the idea of having Sidestep back was a surprisingly fond one, the reality of Miles Becker being alive is disturbing. In too many ways to count. 

* * *

Daniel lifts a little from the ground when the door opens, because he’s lost in thought, in memories, and when he snaps his head up first all he sees is Ortega. Tall, dressed in white, eye-catching as always. It’s only when Ortega turns his head to the figure beside him that Daniel even notices someone followed him into the room. 

Ortega calls him Miles, and he’s taller than Daniel, dressed in drab clothes and it’s not until he addresses Steel by name that he dares to believe that this is really Sidestep. He even knows that voice, from news clips and the rare interviews. Sidestep, alive. Looking... intensely normal? Mousy brown hair, quite unkempt, like he hasn’t been to a hairdresser in too long, deep dark circles under his eyes, shoulders held high. 

He looks younger that Daniel expected - much younger. Daniel was still a kid when Sidestep was fighting next to Marshal Charge, right, and _they_ were supposed to be the same age, _right?_ But then when he talks, when he moves, Daniel can see it - he has a boyish face but there’s years in his voice and in his manners.

Steel just glares at him and Argent won’t look at anyone and _damn it,_ is no one going to be at least professional around here? 

“Let me just say that I for one am glad to have your assistance,” Daniel says, and is glad that his voice holds up. “And that you are alive, of course, Charge has always spoken very highly of you.” A glance passes between Sidestep and Ortega that Daniel can’t read. “Now that Sidestep is-”

“Miles,” he says, and looks straight at Daniel with a smile. “Just Miles. Sidestep was seven years ago.” 

His heart beats harder than it has any right to. This is the hero he always wanted to be, and he’s nothing like the man Daniel had imagined. But the voice is the same, and when he’s looking straight at Daniel he can’t help but notice the scars on his face - not as many as Steel’s but enough, and when he lowers his hand there are traces of fights there too.

“As you wish... Miles,” Daniel replies and he’s afraid the smile is a bit too happy, and oh god - Sidestep is a telepath, he’s going to _know -_

* * *

Miles Becker looks like a nobody. And Ortega keeps looking at him like he’s... Ugh, she doesn’t know like what. Like a long lost lover back from the dead, she supposes. He has this insipid little smile on his face that makes him look like a teenager. And Herald is even worse - so starstruck it’s not even funny. And what has this man done? Used to be a hero. _Seven years ago_. Right now he probably couldn’t even kick a drunkard out of a bar. 

At least Steel isn’t charmed, but the glaring suspicion is almost worse. 

Miles Becker has obviously chosen to be nobody, but here she is, with three real life _superheroes,_ and they’re staring at this man like he’s... Ugh. 

“You’re a perfect nobody,” she snaps, and sees Herald start to protest. “Well, not exactly a nobody. Ortega always spoke highly of you.” 

Ortega himself looks happy, but Becker’s lips twitch. “Ortega tends to exaggerate a lot,” he says. So at least he actually knows Ortega. “I am nowhere as skilled as he seems to have said I am.” He looks at Ortega and they look at each other and ugh. Is she the only one who can see that he looks like he's living out of a backpack? Like a college kid who flunked out because he smoked too much weed. 

Does he know what she's thinking of him? Can he see into her head right now, can he see the way that monster took her over - 

“My psychic powers aren’t that strong,” he continues. “I used to browse surface thoughts to get the edge in a fight. That’s hardly telepathy powerful enough to go up against someone who could control you like that.” He looks apologetically at Argent, like he’s trying to excuse himself for how worked up the others have become over his presence. She swallows. 

“You’re a lot stronger than you think you are,” Ortega says, and they look at each other again, and it’s actually disgusting. At least Becker seems self-conscious about it. 

He’s... weird. Off putting. Something about him sets her on edge, and she doesn’t understand it. He’s just a has-been. Barely a telepath: harmless. Someone who couldn’t take the heat anymore. 

When he _finally_ gets out of there she realizes she has been gritting her teeth together the whole time. It’s the thought of someone getting into her head again. Has to be. Nothing else. Right?

* * *

Becker slinks out of the room while Ortega and Argent are still locked in an awkward battle of will, but that’s not Wei’s concern right now. Right now, his concern is Miles Becker. 

Not back from the dead, because dead people don’t come back - so he was never dead, just out there somewhere, and if there were people willing to take out the Marshal of the Rangers for asking questions about him... 

It’s a strange coincidence. But by god, if he’s alive, that means... That means Wei might have been wrong about a lot of things. 

“Wait-” he calls out when Becker’s about to turn the corner. He turns, and there’s a sneer on his face, like he’s about to say something rude - but it fades. “I’ll walk you out,” Wei says, which Becker seems to accept without comment. He shoves his hands deep into his pockets and stares at the floor. No reply. 

“So,” Wei says. Hoping the man would want to talk had been a bit optimistic, in retrospect. He still remembers that the last time they saw each other - Wei had been arguing he wasn’t reliable. 

“So?” Becker replies. Like always, when Ortega’s not around, the pleasantries fall away. Nothing even close to a smile for him - just sharp looks and sharper words. 

“So, you survived,” Wei says, and steps in his way. Shorter than he used to be - Becker has to tilt his head up, now. 

“That’s one way of putting it,” he sneers. From this angle, the scars on his forehead are clearer - and God help him, they really do match. 

“And now you’re back,” Wei says. It can’t be true, can it? If those images had been real, then he would have been dead. You don’t live through an autopsy, by definition.

But why fake something like _that?_

The answer is pretty obvious, though. To make him stop looking. And it had worked. 

And here is Miles Becker: back.

“Not by choice, trust me on that,” he says, and deflates a little. “Ortega pulled me into this,” he casts a glance back towards the conference room, where Ortega is probably still arguing with Argent. “If I had known, I...”

“You wouldn’t have come.” 

To Wei’s surprise, Becker just nods. “I’m retired,” he says. 

And Wei believes him. He looks too tired, too worn out. The tightly wound spool of nervous energy that he had been once is gone, and it hits Wei harder than he would have expected. Miles Becker looks like someone whose fought and lost and seen too much. Not young anymore. 

He jumped out of that window. That’s what Ortega said - Sidestep jumped. He shot the thing point blank and then killed himself. What did it make him think?

Or remember?

“Let’s not play pretend here,” Becker says, sharp again. “We were never friends.” 

They weren’t. They were rivals, and he never knew if Becker knew why - he didn’t really know why himself, did he, until he could put his suspicions to rest and only the petty stuff, the _real_ stuff, remained. 

Becker doesn’t react to that thought at all, and when Daniel turns up out of nowhere, they both jump. Is he that good of an actor? Wei doesn’t think so. He’s just retired. Just tired. 


	2. Chapter 2

Ricardo's wearing a sun-bleached baseball cap, a sports team sweater and sunglasses, and no one gives him a second glance. It's scary sometimes, how easy it is to look the part. All it takes is to stop trying so hard.

He shouldn’t be here - not hiding in a shit restaurant, not stalking a young woman on a Saturday afternoon because he feels like there are ants on the inside of his eyelids and his hands keep shaking and his back is killing him. Because the thought of plastering on a smile and being funny and charming and sociable feels like bathing in sewage and a quiet day at home... 

No.

So here he is. Chasing increasingly unlikely leads. Running around the city like headless chicken, hoping for trouble and a distraction from... 

Yeah. 

He's bored. Always bored. That’s why he jumped out of airplanes and off rooftops and keep picking fights with people with superpowers, right? 

God, he is so bored. 

And the girl’s not here today, either, and he's already waited for an hour and the food is long gone. 

Now what?

“Filter coffee,” says a voice that reaches out through the din off conversation and clinking plates and punches him in the face. 

“Large,” says Miles Becker. 

Reluctantly, with a feeling in his gut like rotting garbage, Ricardo looks towards the counter and the man making the order. 

“With an extra espresso shot, please.” 

He’s looking away, out the window, and would have been out of earshot for anyone else; a man about Ricardo's height, dirt-blonde hair in a messy cut down to his shoulders. Mierda. Right height and colors and Miles used to wear things like that, didn’t he? 

“That’ll be $3.55, please,” says the cashier, and the man turns his head and now Ricardo will see that it’s not what he wishes it was, he's just hearing things, seeing things, seeing -

No.

No, no, no. He squeezes his eyes shut until he sees stars, instead, ignoring the ringing noise and the sound of money changing hands.

He’ll look up again and the man will look different. Just a passing resemblance. Just a couple of key features. Just him, seeing things. 

Ricardo looks up just in time to see him raise a hand and rub his eyes.

There’s a burn mark creeping out from his sleeve, and a thick line from a knife cut reaching up to the second knuckle, crisscrossing other lines; familiar ones. Like a fingerprint he can read in an instant, matching marks to memories, scars from fights suddenly vivid in his mind, the twisted finger that never set right because he always refused to see a doctor no matter how hard Ricardo tried -

Anyone could mistake the face, seven years later - different hair, dark eyes, hollow cheeks - but how many of those scars did Ricardo not help clean and bandage back then?

Back before he died.

Now the hands covered in those scars are picking up a red paper cup and the man attached to them says _thanks_ like it was just any other day of his life, like he’s alive, like he's been alive all this time. 

Miles Becker’s eyes looks, for a split second, straight at him. 

And his gaze passes without a hitch. With his heart in his throat Ricardo watches him sit down, slouching back into his seat and blowing on the coffee. 

It’s not him. It can’t be. It has to be but it can’t. Miles would know him, no matter what he wore. Even - even with the glasses, and the haircut and mustache and the seven years - if Miles was alive Miles would recognize him. Like he would recognize Miles; his voice, his face, his hands -

Oh god.

Ricardo would know him even if he looks like shit - and he does. There’s no color in his face except for the purplish blue under his eyes. The long hair doesn’t suit him at all. 

Sick - he looks like someone coming back from a long illness and -

And -

Slowly, carefully, he forces himself to breathe. He breathes, and watches a man dead since seven years drink his coffee while his brain tries to pick up the pieces. 

Piece one: that’s Miles Becker sitting over there, or he's lost his mind entirely. Miles is alive. 

Piece two: so he always was alive. He didn’t die. Ricardo didn’t kill him. 

Piece three: for seven years Miles Becker has been not dead, and Ricardo. Didn’t know. They told him Sidestep was dead and he wasn’t and Miles didn’t let him know. 

Miles didn’t come find him. He didn’t even notice he was sitting there. 

For seven years he's been grieving a not dead man _who didn’t even have the fucking decency to say he didn’t die_ and he's probably in shock and might be hallucinating and his skin is crawling and -

He leaves the restaurant and goes straight home, drinks too much whiskey, falls asleep on the couch and when he wakes up feeling worse than he has in years, he's almost convinced himself it was a dream. 

For almost two days he simply tries not to think about it and Wei gives him weird looks and Angie tells him he's acting like an asshole. 

Then he goes back. 

Miles’s not there the first time. Or the second. 

The third time Ricardo sees him before he even enters, so he stay frozen on the other side of the street, watching through the window. 

He has no idea what he's feeling. A headache, after awhile, sure - from gritting his teeth together. One part of him is a sobbing mess and he should go in there and just throw himself into his arms and beg for forgiveness and the reason he doesn't is the other part, the one that can’t stop thinking about the fact that Miles _didn’t let him know_. Ricardo's been in hell for years and he could have stopped it with a simple phone call. A note. Anything. 

But no, they had to run into each other by accident - and Miles didn’t even recognize him. 

How could Miles not _know_ him? 

So he doesn't walk inside, because he has no idea what to say. What to do. How to behave. 

Then Angie gets possessed, and he’s the only thing Ricardo can think about. It’s what he would have done seven years ago. _Ask Sidestep for help._ And when a week has passed, and they still have no idea what to do, he stops fighting it and makes himself up and wears a white suit to a shitty restaurant in a shitty part of town and stares at him for a whole minute before he's gathered enough courage to say what he's rehearsed. 

“Miles, is that you?” he says out loud, and he moves. The words sound as fake as the smile feels. 

Miles reacts - a curse and a jerky movement that spills coffee all over the table - and that’s it, it is him, a stranger wouldn’t react to his name - it’s him it’s him it’s _him_. 

“I can’t believe it!” 

He looks up with a wild glare in his eyes. 

“It’s really you!” 

Ricardo's rehearsed this in his head, how to sound surprised and overwhelmed but the fact is that he is, it’s like he hasn't processed it properly until he sees Miles’ eyes widen in recognition and his mouth fall open in surprise and oh god _oh god_. 

“You’re alive!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every time I come back to the beginning of the game, I'm hit more and more with the FEELINGS that everyone must had about Sidesteps return. Meanwhile, Sidestep's inner monologue: This is fine.


End file.
